Chapter II: Part 2

"Oh, much worse than that," said Mrs. Selldon, lowering her voice. "I assure you, Mr. Shrewsbury, you would hardly credit the story if I were to tell it you, it is really stranger than fiction." Mark Shrewsbury pricked up his ears, he no longer felt bored, he began to think that, after all, there might be some compensation for this wearisome dinner- party. He was always glad to seize upon material for future plots, and somehow the notion of a mysterious Pole suddenly making his appearance in that quiet country neighbourhood and winning undeserved popularity rather took his fancy. He thought he might make something of it. However, he knew human nature too well to ask a direct question.

"I am sorry to hear that," he said, becoming all at once quite sympathetic and approachable. "I don't like the thought of those simple, unsophisticated people being hoodwinked by a scoundrel."

"No; is it not sad?" said Mrs. Selldon. "Such pleasant, hospitable people as they are! Do you remember the Morleys?"

"Oh yes! There was a pretty daughter who played tennis well."

"Quite so--Gertrude Morley. Well, would you believe it, this miserable fortune-hunter is actually either engaged to her or on the eve of being engaged! Poor Mrs. Milton-Cleave is so unhappy about it, for she knows, on the best authority, that Mr. Zaluski is unfit to enter a respectable house."

"Perhaps he is really some escaped criminal?" suggested Mr. Shrewsbury, tentatively.

Mrs. Selldon hesitated. Then, under the cover of the general roar of conversation, she said in a low voice:--

"You have guessed quite rightly. He is one of the Nihilists who were concerned in the assassination of the late Czar."

"You don't say so!" exclaimed Mark Shrewsbury, much startled. "Is it possible?"

"Indeed, it is only too true," said Mrs. Selldon. "I heard it only the other morning, and on the very best authority. Poor Gertrude Morley! My heart bleeds for her."

Now I can't help observing here that this must have been the merest figure of speech, for just then there was a comfortable little glow of satisfaction about Mrs. Selldon's heart. She was so delighted to have "got on well," as she expressed it, with the literary lion, and by this time dessert was on the table, and soon the tedious ceremony would be happily over.

"But how did he escape?" asked Mark Shrewsbury, still with the thought of "copy" in his mind.

"I don't know the details," said Mrs. Selldon. "Probably they are only known to himself. But he managed to escape somehow in the month of March 1881, and to reach England safely. I fear it is only too often the case in this world--wickedness is apt to be successful."

"To flourish like a green bay tree," said Mark Shrewsbury, congratulating himself on the aptness of the quotation, and its suitability to the Archediaconal dinner-table. "It is the strangest story I have heard for a long time." Just then there was a pause in the general conversation, and Mrs. Selldon took advantage of it to make the sign for rising, so that no more passed with regard to Zaluski.

Shrewsbury, flattering himself that he had left a good impression by his last remark, thought better not to efface it later in the evening by any other conversation with his hostess. But in the small hours of the night, when he had finished his bundle of proofs, he took up his notebook and, strangling his yawns, made two or three brief, pithy notes of the story Mrs. Selldon had told him, adding a further development which occurred to him, and wondering to himself whether "Like a Green Bay Tree" would be a selling title.

After this he went to bed, and slept the sleep of the just, or the unbroken sleep which goes by that name.

MY SIXTH STAGE

But whispering tongues can poison truth.

COLERIDGE.

London in early September is a somewhat trying place. Mark Shrewsbury found it less pleasing in reality than in his visions during the dinner- party at Dulminster. True, his chambers were comfortable, and his type- writer was as invaluable a machine as ever, and his novel was drawing to a successful conclusion; but though all these things were calculated to cheer him, he was nevertheless depressed. Town was dull, the heat was trying, and he had never in his life found it so difficult to settle down to work. He began to agree with the Preacher, that "of making many books there is no end," and that, in spite of his favourite "Remington's perfected No. 2," novel-writing was a weariness to the flesh. Soon he drifted into a sort of vague idleness, which was not a good, honest holiday, but just a lazy waste of time and brains. I was pleased to observe this, and was not slow to take advantage of it. Had he stayed in Pump Court he might have forgotten me altogether in his work, but in the soft luxury of his Club life I found that I had a very fair chance of being passed on to some one else.

One hot afternoon, on waking from a comfortable nap in the depths of an armchair at the Club, Shrewsbury was greeted by one of his friends.

"I thought you were in Switzerland, old fellow!" he exclaimed, yawning and stretching himself.

"Came back yesterday--awfully bad season--confoundedly dull," returned the other. "Where have you been?"

"Down with Warren near Dulminster. Deathly dull hole."

"Do for your next novel. Eh?" said the other with a laugh.

Mark Shrewsbury smiled good-naturedly.

"Talking of novels," he observed, with another yawn, "I heard such a story down there!"

"Did you? Let's hear it. A nice little scandal would do instead of a pick-me-up."

"It's not a scandal. Don't raise your expectations. It's the story of a successful scoundrel."

And then I came out again in full vigour--nay, with vastly increased powers; for though Mark Shrewsbury did not add very much to me, or alter my appearance, yet his graphic words made me much more impressive than I had been under the management of Mrs. Selldon.

"H'm! that's a queer story," said the limp-looking young man from Switzerland. "I say, have a game of billiards, will you?"

Shrewsbury, with prodigious yawn, dragged himself up out of his chair, and the two went off together. As they left the room the only other man present looked up from his newspaper, following them with his eyes.

"Shrewsbury the novelist," he thought to himself. "A sterling fellow! And he heard it from an Archdeacon's wife. Confound it all! the thing must be true then. I'll write and make full inquiries about this Zaluski before consenting to the engagement."

And, being a prompt, business-like man, Gertrude Morley's uncle sat down and wrote the following letter to a Russian friend of his who lived at St. Petersburg, and who might very likely be able to give some account of Zaluski:--

Dear Leonoff,--Some very queer stories are afloat about a young Polish
merchant, by name Sigismund Zaluski, the head of the London branch of
the firm of Zaluski and Zernoff, at St. Petersburg. Will you kindly
make inquiries for me as to his true character and history? I would
not trouble you with this affair, but the fact is Zaluski has made an
offer of marriage to one of my wards, and before consenting to any
betrothal I must know what sort of man he really is. I take it for
granted that "there is no smoke without fire," and that there must be
something in the very strange tale which I have just heard on the best
authority. It is said that this Sigismund Zaluski left St. Petersburg
in March 1881, after the assassination of the late Czar, in which he
was seriously compromised. He is said to be an out-and-out Nihilist,
an atheist, and, in short, a dangerous, disreputable fellow. Will you
sift the matter for me? I don't wish to dismiss the fellow without
good reason, but of course I could not think of permitting him to be
engaged to my niece until these charges are entirely disproved.

With kind remembrances to your father,

I am, yours faithfully
HENRY CRICHTON-MORLEY.

MY SEVENTH STAGE

Yet on the dull silence breaking
With a lightning flash, a word,
Bearing endless desolation
On its blighting wings, I heard;
Earth can forge no keener weapon,
Dealing surer death and pain,
And the cruel echo answered
Through long years again.

A. A. PROCTER.

Curiously enough, I must actually have started for Russia on the same day that Sigismund Zaluski was summoned by his uncle at St. Petersburg to return on a matter of urgent business. I learnt afterwards that the telegram arrived at Muddleton on the afternoon of one of those sunny September days and found Zaluski as usual at the Morleys. He was very much annoyed at being called away just then, and before he had received any reply from Gertrude's uncle as to the engagement. However, after a little ebullition of anger, he regained his usual philosophic tone, and, reminding Gertrude that he need not be away from England for more than a fortnight, he took leave of her and set off in a prompt, manly fashion, leaving most of his belongings at Ivy Cottage, which was his for another six weeks, and to which he hoped shortly to return.

After a weary time of imprisonment in my envelope, I at length reached my destination at St. Petersburg and was read by Dmitry Leonoff. He was a very busy man, and by the same post received dozens of other letters. He merely muttered--"That well-known firm! A most unlikely story!"--and then thrust me into a drawer with other letters which had to be answered. Very probably I escaped his memory altogether for the next few days: however, there I was--a startling accusation in black and white; and, as everybody knows, St. Petersburg is not London.

The Leonoff family lived on the third storey of a large block of buildings in the Sergeffskaia. About two o'clock in the morning, on the third day after my arrival, the whole household was roused from sleep by thundering raps on the door, and the dreaded cry of "Open to the police."

The unlucky master was forced to allow himself, his wife, and his children to be made prisoners, while every corner of the house was searched and every book and paper examined.

Leonoff had nothing whatever to do with the Revolutionary movement, but absolute innocence does not free people from the police inquisition, and five or six years ago, when the Search mania was at its height, a case is on record of a poor lady whose house was searched seven times within twenty-four hours, though there was no evidence whatever that she was connected with the Nihilists; the whole affair was, in fact, a misunderstanding, as she was perfectly innocent.

This search in Dmitry Leonoff's house was also a misunderstanding, and in the dominions of the Czar misunderstandings are of frequent occurrence.

Leonoff knew himself to be innocent, and he felt no fear, though considerable annoyance, while the search was prosecuted; he could hardly believe the evidence of his senses when, without a word of explanation, he was informed that he must take leave of his wife and children, and go in charge of the gendarmes to the House of Preventive Detention.

Being a sensible man, he kept his temper, remarked courteously that some mistake must have been made, embraced his weeping wife, and went off passively, while the pristav carried away a bundle of letters in which I occupied the most prominent place.

Leonoff remained a prisoner only for a few days; there was not a shred of evidence against him, and, having suffered terrible anxiety, he was finally released. But Mr. Crichton-Morley's letter was never restored to him, it remained in the hands of the authorities, and the night after Leonoff's arrest the pristav, the procurator, and the gendarmes made their way into the dwelling of Sigismund Zaluski's uncle, where a similar search was prosecuted.

Sigismund was asleep and dreaming of Gertrude and of his idyllic summer in England, when his bedroom door was forced open and he was roughly roused by the gendarmes.

His first feeling was one of amazement, his second, one of indignation; however, he was obliged to get up at once and dress, the policeman rigorously keeping guard over him the whole time for fear he should destroy any treasonable document.

"How I shall make them laugh in England when I tell them of this ridiculous affair!" reflected Sigismund, as he was solemnly marched into the adjoining room, where he found his uncle and cousins, each guarded by a policeman.

He made some jesting remark, but was promptly reprimanded by his gaoler, and in wearisome silence the household waited while the most rigorous search of the premises was made.

Of course nothing was found; but, to the amazement of all, Sigismund was formally arrested.

"There must be some mistake," he exclaimed, "I have been resident in England for some time. I have no connection whatever with Russian politics."

"Oh, we are well aware of your residence in England," said the pristav. "You left St. Petersburg early in March 1881. We are well aware of that."

Something in the man's tone made Sigismund's heart stand still. Could he possibly be suspected of complicity in the plot to assassinate the late Czar? The idea would have made him laugh had he been in England. In St. Petersburg, and under these circumstances, it made him tremble.

"There is some terrible mistake," he said. "I have never had the slightest connection with the revolutionary party."

The pristav shrugged his shoulders, and Sigismund, feeling like one in a dream, took leave of his relations, and was escorted at once to the House of Preventive Detention.

Arrived at his destination, he was examined in a brief, unsatisfactory way; but when he angrily asked for the evidence on which he had been arrested, he was merely told that information had been received charging him with being concerned in the assassination of the late Emperor, and of being an advanced member of the Nihilist party. His vehement denials were received with scornful incredulity, his departure for England just after the assassination, and his prolonged absence from Russia, of course gave colour to the accusation, and he was ordered off to his cell "to reflect."

MY TRIUMPHANT FINALE

Words are mighty, words are living;
Serpents with their venomous stings,
Or bright angels crowding round us,
With heaven's light upon their wings;
Every word has its own spirit,
True or false, that never dies;
Every word man's lips have uttered
Echoes in God's skies.

A. A. PROCTER.

My labours were now nearly at an end, and being, so to speak, off duty, I could occupy myself just as I pleased. I therefore resolved to keep watch over Zaluski in his prison.

For the first few hours after his arrest he was in a violent passion; he paced up and down his tiny cell like a lion in a cage; he was beside himself with indignation, and the blood leapt through his veins like wildfire.

Then he became a little ashamed of himself and tried to grow quiet, and after a sleepless night he passed to the opposite extreme and sat all day long on the solitary stool in his grim abode, his head resting on his hands, and his mind a prey to the most fearful melancholy.

The second night, however, he slept, and awoke with a steady resolve in his mind.

"It will never do to give way like this, or I shall be in a brain fever in no time," he reflected. "I will get leave to have books and writing materials. I will make the best of a bad business."

He remembered how pleased he had been when Gertrude had once smiled on him because, when all the others in the party were grumbling at the discomforts of a certain picnic where the provisions had gone astray, he had gaily made the best of it and ransacked the nearest cottages for bread-and-cheese. He set to work bravely now; hoped daily for his release; read all the books he was allowed to receive, invented solitary games, began a novel, and drew caricatures.

In October he was again examined; but, having nothing to reveal, it was inevitable that he could reveal nothing; and he was again sent back to his cell "to reflect."

I perceived that after this his heart began to fail him.

There existed in the House of Preventive Detention a system of communication between the luckless prisoners carried on by means of tapping on the wall. Sigismund, being a clever fellow, had become a great adept at this telegraphic system, and had struck up a friendship with a young student in the next cell; this poor fellow had been imprisoned three years, his sole offence being that he had in his possession a book of which the Government did not approve, and that he was first cousin to a well-known Nihilist.

The two became as devoted to each other as Silvio Pellico and Count Oroboni; but it soon became evident to Valerian Vasilowitch that, unless Zaluski was released, he would soon succumb to the terrible restrictions of prison life.

"Keep up your heart, my friend," he used to say. "I have borne it three years, and am still alive to tell the tale."

"But you are stronger both in mind and body," said Sigismund; "and you are not madly in love as I am."

And then he would pour forth a rhapsody about Gertrude, and about English life, and about his hopes and fears for the future; to all of which Valerian, like the brave fellow he was, replied with words of encouragement.

But at length there came a day when his friend made no answer to his usual morning greeting.

"Are you ill?" he asked.

For some time there was no reply, but after a while Sigismund rapped faintly the despairing words:--

"Dead beat!"

Valerian felt the tears start to his eyes. It was what he had all along expected, and for a time grief and indignation and his miserable helplessness made him almost beside himself. At last he remembered that there was at least one thing in his power. Each day he was escorted by a warder to a tiny square, walled off in the exercising ground, and was allowed to walk for a few minutes; he would take this opportunity of begging the warder to get the doctor for his friend.

But unfortunately the doctor did not think very seriously of Zaluski's case. In that dreary prison he had patients in the last stages of all kinds of disease, and Sigismund, who had been in confinement too short a time to look as ill as the others, did not receive much attention. Certainly, the doctor admitted, his lungs were affected; probably the sudden change of climate and the lack of good food and fresh air had been too much for him; so the solemn farce ended, and he was left to his fate. "If I were indeed a Nihilist, and suffered for a cause which I had at heart," he telegraphed to Valerian, "I could bear it better. But to be kept here for an imaginary offence, to bear cold and hunger and illness all to no purpose--that beats me. There can't be a God, or such things would not be allowed."

"To me it seems," said Valerian, "that we are the victims of violated law. Others have shown tyranny, or injustice, or cruelty, and we are the victims of their sin. Don't say there is no God. There must be a God to avenge such hideous wrong."

So they spoke to each other through their prison wall as men in the free outer world seldom care to speak; and I, who knew no barriers, looked now on Valerian's gaunt figure, and brave but prematurely old face, now on poor Zaluski, who, in his weary imprisonment, had wasted away till one could scarcely believe that he was indeed the same lithe, active fellow who had played tennis at Mrs. Courtenay's garden-party.

Day and night Valerian listened to the terrible cough which came from the adjoining cell. It became perfectly apparent to him that his friend was dying; he knew it as well as if he had seen the burning hectic flush on his hollow cheeks, and heard the panting, hurried breaths, and watched the unnatural brilliancy of his dark eyes.

At length he thought the time had come for another sort of comfort.

"My friend," he said one day, "it is too plain to me now that you are dying. Write to the procurator and tell him so. In some cases men have been allowed to go home to die."

A wild hope seized on poor Sigismund; he sat down to the little table in his cell and wrote a letter to the procurator--a letter which might almost have drawn tears from a flint. Again and again he passionately asserted his innocence, and begged to know on what evidence he was imprisoned. He began to think that he could die content if he might leave this terrible cell, might be a free agent once more, if only for a few days. At least he might in that case clear his character, and convince Gertrude that his imprisonment had been all a hideous mistake; nay, he fancied that he might live through a journey to England and see her once again.

But the procurator would not let him be set free, and refused to believe that his case was really a serious one.

Sigismund's last hope left him.

The days and weeks dragged slowly on, and when, according to English reckoning, New Year's Eve arrived, he could scarcely believe that only seventeen weeks ago he had actually been with Gertrude, and that disgrace and imprisonment had seemed things that could never come near him, and death had been a far-away possibility, and life had been full of bliss.

As I watched him a strong desire seized me to revisit the scenes of which he was thinking, and I winged my way back to England, and soon found myself in the drowsy, respectable streets of Muddleton.

It was New Year's Eve, and I saw Mrs. O'Reilly preparing presents for her grandchildren, and talking, as she tied them up, of that dreadful Nihilist who had deceived them in the summer. I saw Lena Houghton, and Mr. Blackthorne, and Mrs. Milton-Cleave, kneeling in church on that Friday morning, praying that pity might be shown "upon all prisoners and captives, and all that are desolate or oppressed."

It never occurred to them that they were responsible for the sufferings of one weary prisoner, or that his death would be laid at their door.

I flew to Dulminster, and saw Mrs. Selldon kneeling in the cathedral at the late evening service and rigorously examining herself as to the shortcomings of the dying year. She confessed many things in a vague, untroubled way; but had any one told her that she had cruelly wronged her neighbour, and helped to bring an innocent man to shame, and prison, and death, she would not have believed the accusation.

I sought out Mark Shrewsbury. He was at his chambers in Pump Court working away with his type-writer; he had a fancy for working the old year out and the new year in, and now he was in the full swing of that novel which had suggested itself to his mind when Mrs. Selldon described the rich and mysterious foreigner who had settled down at Ivy Cottage. Most happily he laboured on, never dreaming that his careless words had doomed a fellow-man to a painful and lingering death; never dreaming that while his fingers flew to and fro over his dainty little keyboard, describing the clever doings of the unscrupulous foreigner, another man, the victim of his idle gossip, tapped dying messages on a dreary prison wall.

For the end had come.

Through the evening Sigismund rested wearily on his truckle-bed. He could not lie down because of his cough, and, since there were no extra pillows to prop him up, he had to rest his head and shoulders against the wall. There was a gas-burner in the tiny cell, and by its light he looked round the bare walls of his prison with a blank, hopeless, yet wistful gaze; there was the stool, there was the table, there were the clothes he should never wear again, there was the door through which his lifeless body would soon be carried. He looked at everything lingeringly, for he knew that this desolate prison was the last bit of the world he should ever see.

Presently the gas was turned out.

He sighed as he felt the darkness close in upon him, for he knew that his eyes would never again see light--knew that in this dark lonely cell he must lie and wait for death. And he was young and wished to live, and he was in love and longed most terribly for the presence of the woman he loved.

The awful desolateness of the cell was more than he could endure; he tried to think of his past life, he tried to live once again through those happy weeks with Gertrude; but always he came back to the aching misery of the present--the cold and the pain, and the darkness and the terrible solitude.

His nerveless fingers felt their way to the wall and faintly rapped a summons.

"Valerian!" he said, "I shall not live through the night. Watch with me."

The faint raps sounded clearly in the stillness of the great building, and Valerian dreaded lest the warders should hear them, and deal out punishment for an offence which by day they were forced to wink at.

But he would not for the world have deserted his friend. He drew his stool close to the wall, wrapped himself round in all the clothes he could muster, and, shivering with cold, kept watch through the long winter night.

"I am near you," he telegraphed. "I will watch with you till morning."

From time to time Sigismund rapped faint messages, and Valerian replied with comfort and sympathy. Once he thought to himself, "My friend is better; there is more power in his hand." And indeed he trembled, fearing that the sharp, emphatic raps must certainly attract notice and put an end to their communion.

"Tell my love that the accusation was false--false!" the word was vehemently repeated. "Tell her I died broken-hearted, loving her to the end."

"I will tell her all when I am free," said poor Valerian, wondering with a sigh when his unjust imprisonment would end. "Do you suffer much?" he asked.

There was a brief interval. Sigismund hesitated to tell a falsehood in his last extremity.

"It will soon be over. Do not be troubled for me," he replied. And after that there was a long, long silence.

Poor fellow! he died hard; and I wished that those comfortable English people could have been dragged from their warm beds and brought into the cold dreary cell where their victim lay, fighting for breath, suffering cruelly both in mind and body. Valerian, listening in sad suspense, heard one more faint word rapped by the dying man.

"Farewell!"

"God be with you!" he replied, unable to check the tears which rained down as he thought of the life so sadly ended, and of his own bereavement.

He heard no more. Sigismund's strength failed him, and I, to whom the darkness made no difference, watched him through the last dread struggle; there was no one to raise him, or hold him, no one to comfort him. Alone in the cold and darkness of that first morning of the year 1887, he died.

Valerian did not hear through the wall his last faint gasping cry, but I heard it, and its exceeding bitterness would have made mortals weep.

"Gertrude!" he sobbed. "Gertrude!"

And with that his head sank on his breast, and the life, which but for me might have been so happy and prosperous, was ended.

* * * * *

Prompted by curiosity, I instantly returned to Muddleton and sought out Gertrude Morley. I stole into her room. She lay asleep, but her dreams were troubled, and her face, once so fresh and bright, was worn with pain and anxiety.

Scarcely had I entered the room when, to my amazement, I saw the spirit of Sigismund Zaluski.

I saw him bend down and kiss the sleeping girl, and for a moment her sad face lighted up with a radiant smile.

I looked again; he was gone. Then Gertrude threw up both her arms and with a bitter cry awoke from her dream.

"Sigismund!" she cried. "Oh, Sigismund! Now I know that you are dead indeed."

For a long, long time she lay in a sort of trance of misery. It seemed as if the life had been almost crushed out of her, and it was not until the bells began to ring for the six o'clock service, merrily pealing out their welcome of the new year morning, that full consciousness returned to her again. But, as she clearly realised what had happened, she broke into such a passion of tears as I had never before witnessed, while still in the darkness the new year bells rang gaily, and she knew that they heralded for her the beginning of a lonely life.

And so my work ended; my part in this world was played out. Nevertheless I still live; and there will come a day when Sigismund and Gertrude shall be comforted and the slanderers punished.

For poor Valerian was right, and there is an Avenger, in whom even my progenitor believes, and before whom he trembles.

There will come a time when those self-satisfied ones, whose hands are all the time steeped in blood, shall be confronted with me, and shall realise to the full all that their idle words have brought about.

For that day I wait; and though afterwards I shall be finally destroyed in the general destruction of all that is unmitigatedly evil, I promise myself a certain satisfaction and pleasure (a feeling I doubtless inherit from my progenitor), when I watch the shame, and horror, and remorse of Mrs. O'Reilly and the rest of the people to whom I owe my existence and rapid growth.